Belt tensioning solution

[TerryS]

Originally Posted by Thermal

I would like to ask the OP on how well the back of those belts slide against that plastic. Is the friction pretty much negligible?

The plastic is acetal (Delrin) so it's pretty slippery. In this application the belt's not moving that fast or that often so I think the tensioner will hold up OK. I took it apart after a day of practice and did not see any noticeable wear on the tensioner or belt.

By the way, we have slots in our shaft mounts, but we were not able to get enough tension in both sides of this long belt that way.

[Jared Russell]

You could try a floating idler as well. See: http://www.team228.org/media/pictures/view/5117

I've never seen them on a timing belt before, but I suspect they would work as long as you get enough tooth engagement to make sure they don't fall out.

[TerryS]

Originally Posted by Jared341

You could try a floating idler as well. See: http://www.team228.org/media/pictures/view/5117

I've never seen them on a timing belt before, but I suspect they would work as long as you get enough tooth engagement to make sure they don't fall out.

We tried that too and it looked like it would work, but the big sprocket that we had didn't have flanges on it so we were worried about it coming out. We could have cut out thin circular plates and attached them to the sprocket to act as flanges. We'll keep that in our back pocket in case we run into trouble with the plastic chain tensioner.